


Utopia

by pyrrhocorax (mniotilta)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 05:36:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10678767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mniotilta/pseuds/pyrrhocorax
Summary: “Hey, do you want to get married?”“I don’t know if I’m ready for that, yet.”





	Utopia

**Author's Note:**

> More writing exercise stuff: hopefully in the coming months I will be able to have more free time to write, but there's a lot of stuff going on/has been going on in my personal life that's been nuts.
> 
> This is a really odd FUN FACT but i came up with this idea when i was watching Birdemic of all things with a friend several months ago??? a strange source of inspiration to be sure.
> 
> I may add onto this if I feel like it.
> 
> Henrik is my name for Denmark.  
> Halvard "Halle" is my name for Norway.

Halvard draws himself a bath, pulling the handle and adjusting for a few minutes before settling on a perfect temperature, dipping his nose into the stream of water before plunging his face in. He lets it flow over him for a few seconds before drawing back, examining a bottle of soap briefly before opening the cap and dumping a hefty amount into the water. He smiles immediately when bubbles start to foam, and he takes a small bit in his hand and holds it, flexing his hand into a fist and letting it squeeze out between the gaps. It’s not the best bubble bath he’s ever had, but it’s good enough.  
  
Henrik walks through the open door with a determined look on his face, a small duffle bag slung around his shoulder as he scans the bathroom with great focus, ignoring Halvard even though Halvard stares directly at him. He rummages under the sink, placing some things he finds in the bag and others he carefully examines before leaving them behind. He exits, humming, and returns about ten minutes later, craning his head around the doorframe.  
  
“Hey, do you want to get married?”  
  
“I don’t know if I’m ready for that, yet,” Halvard states, closing his eyes and creating waves in the water by moving his legs in and out. He stops, letting the water balance itself, and looks up at Henrik. “Sorry.”  
  
“That’s okay,” Henrik nods, “I understand.”  
  
He leaves, without a change in mood, and Halvard can hear him singing softly, lightheartedly, from elsewhere in the house.

* * *

When darkness comes so does the storm, and in between the rolling thunder the lights flicker. Henrik sits cross legged on the carpet and has laid everything out, everything, he says, that they’ll need to take with them. He even borrowed a few things from the neighbors, he laughs, but Halvard doesn’t. Henrik is oddly organized, with items arranged perfectly in rows and lines of logic, but he wants everything to be perfect, he doesn’t want to have missed anything, and Halvard nods in approval. “You did good,” he says, and Henrik beams at the praise momentarily before siphoning that energy into packing everything away again. Halvard helps, and the rain batters on the roof.  
  
They designate a corner as the space for the things they need. Halvard asks quietly if the printer works, and Henrik says that he doesn’t know. They both poke and prod it until they manage to have it beep at them, and Halvard says that he wants to print out pictures before they go, pictures of people that they love, and so pages and pages of camera photos get stacked in front of the doorway. “So there’s no chance that we’ll forget,” Halvard says, even though Henrik knows that neither of them will.  
  
The wind howls as they crawl into bed.

* * *

“I don’t want to leave,” Halvard whispers in between breaths of their quiet sex.  
  
“We don’t have to, Halle.”    
  
“But we should.”   


* * *

It’s a late start when they finally leave bed the next morning, it’s just too warm, there’s so much to talk about, and it’s easier to support another person when you’re both vulnerable, when you’re both afraid. Halvard is reluctant to leave, he’s reluctant when Henrik says they need to leave, he puts a hand out to grab Henrik’s wrist as he tries to pull the covers off and leave. Henrik comes back to him, kisses him on the lips, and tells him that he doesn’t want to go either, but they should if they want to reach their destination at a decent hour.   
  
“I want to take this quilt with us,” Halvard yawns, putting on his pants. “It’ll keep us warm.”   
  
“Yeah, sounds good. Take the pillows, too?”   
  
“I guess?”   
  
“We’ll have room.”   
  
“Then yeah.”   


* * *

It’s Henrik the pauses when he’s faced with closing the front door, his hand around the handle in reflex but he stands there considering whether or not it is really needed.    
  
“There’s no point,” Halvard shouts from the car, sunglasses covering his eyes. “Leave it open.”   
  
So Henrik does, but the act of breaking normality makes his stomach feel a little queasy. 

* * *

The road is long, the road is empty, and they stop at a few places along the way. Halvard checks books out of the library, both practical and not, and he starts restarting one of his old favorites while he sits in the passenger’s seat, waiting for Henrik to return with baskets full of things that Halvard interested in asking about. He re-reads the first page over and over again but he can’t focus, his mind is elsewhere, and he hardly notices Henrik’s return until he feels something solid touch against his lips.   
  
“Chocolate, for the road,” Henrik explains, and Halvard allows it to melt in his mouth slowly.  


* * *

“How much farther do we have to go?” Henrik asks.   
  
“Are we low on gas?”   
  
“We’re getting there.”   
  
“It’s soon,” Halvard nods. “Trust me.”   


* * *

They pass a car on the side of the road, empty.   
  
“I wonder what happened?” Halvard whispers, under his breath.   


* * *

They arrive at an old farmhouse, beaten but still standing, and Halvard exits the car before Henrik completely stops it. The paint has faded much more than he expected, but it’s fixable, it’s not big deal, and he wanders around the outside without saying a word to Henrik. He runs his fingers across tools lined up perfectly in the shed, drums on the wooden walls of the barn, the chicken coop is empty and he clucks at nonexistent birds out of reflex. It’s empty, sure, but not hollow: there are barn swallows meticulously constructing nests on the side of the shed, mouthful after mouthful of mud and spit. They construct their cradles, their home places, just as Halvard had built this place long ago. The neighbors had upkept it for him in the past, but there were no more neighbors. He wanders back to the house, sun beating down on his neck, and sits on the porch while Henrik brings things from the car into the house, bit by bit.   
  
There’s another swallow nest being built, right above Halvard’s head, and he watches them travel from a muddy puddle and back with a hint of bitterness.   
  
“What should we do?” Henrik asks after he finishes.   
  
Halvard is silent for a good, long while.   
  
“I don’t know.”   


* * *

Halvard spends the rest of his day on the porch, moving from sitting to laying, laying down in the dirt, in the shadow of the building. Henrik is the one who says that he’ll take care of things, and he’s gone, out of sight and earshot until the sun starts to fall, when he gently places a chicken upon Halvard’s face. It is not entirely unpleasant of a sensation until the chicken moves, sticking one of her talons into his nostril. Henrik laughs about it, Halvard doesn’t, but three hours later he finds himself smiling about it, a delayed reaction, but he has a lot on his mind.  
  
Henrik admits to his thievery, how he’s been transporting animals from the neighboring properties onto their prope—sorry, your property, he corrects himself—but Halvard corrects him back.    
  
“No,” he says, “it can be yours, now, too.”   
  
Henrik tells him about the menagerie that he’s created, and he beams proudly when he presents Halvard with a neighbor’s dog. “She’s a mutt,” he says proudly, and she wags her tail when Henrik calls her by the name on her collar.   
  
She’s initially wary of them, but by the end of the weak she sleeps with them, at the foot of the bed.   


* * *

They wake up before the sun rises and work all day until the sun sets. With each day the hours are longer, the day is warmer, the swallows lay their eggs and Halvard wipes the sweat off his brow between axe strikes, splitting logs in two.    
  
In the evening they are quiet, unsure of what needs to be said, and only start talking once months have gone by.

* * *

“It could be the end, soon,” Henrik says. “You know?”  
  
“I don’t think you’re right,” Halvard replies, stroking his fingers across photographs of people that he wants to show up on his doorstep, that he wants to come home. “It won’t ever be the end,” and he’s stern in this response, and although he admits the possibility that Henrik is right, that they are the only people who have not disappeared from the earth, he doesn’t want to believe that it’s real.   
  
“They’ll know where to find me,” Halvard says, and some afternoons he stands in the middle of the road and sweeps his head from side to side slowly, hoping for some movement in the distance.   
  
Years pass.    



End file.
